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Natalie Bravo is an IPilogue Writer and a 2L JD Candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School.

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Anita Baker is a legendary soul and R&B singer-songwriter who rose to fame in the 1980s. The iconic singer has won and various notable awards for her popular and timeless ballads. Earlier this year during Grammy season, Baker requested that fans not . Through Twitter, she expressed that she had outlived all her recording contracts and that her master recordings should legally belong to her. On September 3, Baker in her masters fight and gave fans the go-ahead to listen to her music once more.

Baker’s tweets and subsequent support from fans come as no surprise. In recent years, popular artists have spoken out about compensation from and Ownership of masters within the music industry has become a contentious and popular matter, particularly after Taylor Swift’s legal battle resulted in This case is a bit different as it likely relies on a lesser-known section of U.S. copyright law. When Baker described outliving her contracts, she was referring to her , which lets her reclaim her copyright after 35 years. states that authors or their survivors are entitled to “terminate grants of copyright assignments and licenses that were made on or after January 1, 1978 when certain conditions have been met.” It is not clear what the conditions were in this case besides length of time, however Baker advocated for ownership effectively and succeeded.Ěý

Baker was not only upset that she did not own her masters, but also that the current recordings available were of inferior quality. Baker that the songs currently available lacked the original instrumentation, the recordings were sped up, and the vinyl sold today are not from analog masters, but rather re-processed digital copies. She believes her fans deserve better. Fans encouraged her in a dedicated fashion, with some stating that they just so they could enjoy her music without having to stream it.

Between March and September, Baker frequently provided legal updates through short tweets. Notably, she shared that with Warner Music Group (formerly WEA Records) began in May 2021 and that she was making progress. Finally, on September 3, she published a photo of her catalog and announced that all . Her advocacy on Twitter garnered tremendous support from her fellow musicians. Fun fact: Taylor Swift and tweeted following Baker’s success.

In the words of Anita Baker, “.”

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Until recently, Canada did not recognize protection for invasion of personal privacy per se between individuals. This position was seen in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice decision in , where Whitaker J. found that a freestanding tort of the invasion of privacy did not exist in Ontario. Jones v. Tsige was a case where the defendant improperly accessed the plaintiff's private banking information in an attempt to confirm whether the plaintiff was receiving child support payments. The Superior Court of Justice notedĚýthat Canadian courts were reluctant to recognize a separate right in light of the Ontario Court of Appeal’s decision in ,Ěýwhere the court noted that there is no "free standing right" to dignity and privacy under the charter, and dismissed the plaintiff’s claim on the basis that Ontario law did not recognize a tort of breach of privacy. This position was criticized by many academics and even under IP Osgoode in by David Vaver.

This position was reversed by the Ěýin a decision two weeks ago, whereby Sharpe J.A. recognized a new tort, “intrusion upon seclusion”, finding that aggrieved parties should have recourse for violations of their privacy, especially in an age where vast amounts of private information is generated and stored. Summary judgement was granted in Jones' favour, with damages amounting to $10,000.

A similar case was decided in the England and Wales High Court, , where a dispute between two directors of a company led to supposedly private conversations being used in a malicious way to make false allegations about the health of one of the directors. The director, Mr. Cooper, was having a private discussion with anotherĚýdirector, whereby he disclosed certain health issues he was facing in a manner that was explicitly confidential. The CEO, Mr. Turrell, had the room “bugged”, andĚýmade public allegations about Cooper’s health on both his blog and Twitter account, embedding the transcript and the recording of the discussion. In coming to his decision, Tugendhat J., granted a permanent injunction for the plaintiff andĚýa rather large sum of damages to Mr. Cooper: ÂŁ50,000 for libel, an additional ÂŁ30,000 for misuse of private information. It was also notedĚýin obiter that had there been only misuse of private information, he would have given ÂŁ40,000 in damages.

These cases demonstrate a growing trend around the world towards extending the common law to provide legal protection where one member of the public misuses the private information of another. In the ever-evolving reality of technological advances, it has become trivially easy for a malicious party to capture the personal and private information of an individual, and it is a welcome sight to see the Courts starting to take an active role in demonstrating that this form of behavior is not acceptable in today’s society.

Brian Chau is a JD candidate at Osgoode Hall Law School.

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